On Friday, May 16, the 78th Street Studios in Cleveland will be holding the monthly Third Friday art exhibit, inviting the public to visit the more than two dozen studios in the former American Greetings building. The place will be packed with local art and local art lovers.

One thing it won't have is alcohol.

Dan Bush, the owner of the building, had a meeting with his artist tenants this week and decided they would collectively forgo the serving of alcohol at Friday night's opening. This has something to do with artist and gallery owner Loren Naji. He shares a space at 78th Street Studios with his sister, Jamilla, and another artist, Dawn Tekler.

Since the May 2 raid on the Naji Studio Gallery on West 25th Street by state liquor control board agents, owner Naji has been all over the news and the Internet. The debate that has raged: Did law enforcement overstep its bounds busting an art show, where wine and beer are commonly served? Or should the artists know better and follow the rules? And behind the debate is the man, which begs the question: Who is Loren Naji?

Loren Naji is 57 years old and is the married father of one daughter and three stepchildren. Wife Jodi is a professor of microbiology at Kent State University. He lives in Kirtland. He grew up in Gates Mills. His dad is a retired pathologist who worked at the former St. Alexis Hospital. Naji has a twin brother, Eric, a baker who lives in Atlanta and a younger sister, Jamilla, who shares that 78th Street Studio gallery called Naji Naji and Tekler.

He attended Mayfield High School, then Kent State from 1975-1981, majoring in graphic design. He received a BFA in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art. He took classes at New York Studio School's drawing program, and classes at the New York Art Students League in portraiture. He has pursued post-graduate studies in sculpture at Kent State hoping to get his master's degree.

Naji is an accomplished world traveler. He has hitchhiked all over the United States and traveled to far reaches of the globe buying cultural artifacts in Papua, New Guinea; India; Tibet; Bali; Thailand; Sumatra; Java; East Timor; Morocco; Borneo and Turkey. From 1995 until 2000, he spent six months of each year exploring different far-flung cultures, returning with pieces of artwork for what he called his expedition gallery shows at Design Studio Gallery in Cleveland Heights. During the openings, he would play music from the different countries he visited and serve hors d'oeuvres from those places.

In 2001 he married Jodi and two years later their daughter, Brielle, was born. Naji bought his 3,000-square-foot Studio Gallery in 2005. Since that time, he hass hosted 30 art events.

Naji, a sculptor and painter, has exhibited his work in numerous shows -- some prestigious, like the Butler Museum in Youngstown, Federation of the Arts in Baltimore and the Cleveland Museum of Art NEO show.

Upcoming projects include the ART (Astronaut Regional Transport system), an RV-turned shuttle bus that will give people free transportation to disparate communities during art events. He's opening Satellite, a new gallery devoted to installation art, in Collinwood on E. 156th St. near the Waterloo arts district and across from the Arts Collinwood center.

All these projects were funded by grants in conjunction with Northeast Shores Development, a neighborhood revitalization group.

Naji is a firm believer in the concept that communities large and small are improved through the arts. He sees art as being all encompassing, involving writing, music, dance and food. He believes the arts are what make cities rich and exciting.

Asked if he had a philosophy about how art affects cities, Naji said, "Artists are poor and they tend to live in poor communities. Then the art galleries appear, followed by coffee shops, restaurants, and improved apartments. Then people move in, rents go up and the poor artists have to find a new place to live. And when they do, they improve the new poor neighborhood. This is why art is important and how art improves a city one neighborhood at a time."

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